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Prosecutor: Boston officer justified in fatal shooting

BOSTON (AP) – A Massachusetts prosecutor has ruled that a Boston police officer was justified in fatally shooting a mentally ill man last year.

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley on Thursday released the findings of an investigation into the October shooting of Terrence Coleman in the South End. Coleman died after being shot twice in the abdomen by Officer Garrett Boyle.

Conley said Boyle’s use of deadly force was a lawful exercise of self-defense and defense of others, because the lives of officers and emergency medical technicians were in danger as Coleman swung a 5-inch-long kitchen knife at them.

The Boston-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice said Thursday that Coleman did not need to die and police need better training on how to deal with mentally ill people.

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